A Georgia House subcommittee approved a “parent trigger” charter schools bill Thursday, setting the stage for its consideration next week by the full Education Committee.
Before a packed hearing room, House Majority Whip Edward Lindsey, R-Atlanta, made a pitch for his legislation, which would allow parents and teachers to force a local school board to consider their petition to change their traditional public school into a charter school.
The legislation, House Bill 123, is a priority for school choice advocates, who say that Georgia’s traditional public schools are not doing a good enough job and that parents should have options beyond them.
Many of those who addressed the bill Thursday, however, raised concerns about it.
“Everybody in this room knows that something has to change,” said Cita Cook, a retired teacher. “The idea of saying we’re going to totally change a school is going too far.”
Lindsey’s bill, modeled in broad terms on legislation that has passed in a handful of other states, would force a local school board to consider a petition to change a traditional public school into a charter school if that petition was signed by a member of a majority of the school’s households or by a majority of the school’s faculty and instructional staff.
The school board would not have to approve the petition, but it would have to consider it.
But if 60 percent of the households or of the school’s faculty and instructional staff signed a charter petition, Lindsey’s legislation would require that the school become a charter school unless two-thirds of the school board’s members reject the petition.
Opponents of the legislation have said it would lessen the authority of school boards, but Lindsey said Thursday that it would empower parents.
“It’s very important to give parents the voice that this bill gives,” said Lindsey, who put forward similar legislation last year but pulled it to work on it further.
Since then, voters in Georgia passed a constitutional amendment clarifying the state’s power to approve charter schools, which are public schools granted organizational flexibility in exchange for pursuing specific education goals.
That amendment fight was a rugged one, and Thursday’s crowded hearing room offered hints that Lindsey’s legislation could be the subject of a similarly tough battle.
On Wednesday, the Georgia Federation of Teachers announced its opposition.
“The truth is parent trigger legislation is not about empowering parents, teachers and other education stakeholders,” the federation said in a statement. “It’s about handing over our neighborhood public schools to organizations that would undermine and privatize our schools.”
Some of those who addressed the bill Thursday said it was not necessary because the state Department of Education already focuses on struggling schools.
Lindsey’s argument carried the day, however, with members of the Academic Innovations Subcommittee deciding by voice vote to move the legislation on to the full Education Committee, which is expected to take it up Tuesday.
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